Different Ways To Sign Pots

I'm interested in the many ways that potters use to sign their pots...on greenware or bisqueware, carving name & filling with oxides or stains, just brush signing...and the details. Also, whether or not to include the date. Thanks

I sign all my work with a brush and oxide-but I also decorate all my work with brush and oxide. I do not write the date, as there is always some ckunker hiding in a box that you can sell. If people think that it is old work, they wonder why it didn't sell.

I follow the Leach tradition (I know it is really a Japanese, but I learned if from Leach) of making a stamp and bisque firing it. I then use it to press into leather hard clay. I make sure that when I glaze no glaze touches the stamped area.

I use a pencil or wooden rib to sign through a piece of plastic shopping bag-no burr. I also stamp an Old English "R" from letter press. I date everything, but then don't worry about sales that much. I can see how dating -dates your stuff. No one wants last year, or 10 years ago unless of course they are a collector, or just like your work. Lately I have been getting fancier with the signature with an incised line with interlaced squiggles at the ends forming a spot for the "R".

I use my needle tool, i don't date it as some shoppers seem to think its the pot's expiration date but i have found it handy to put the cone i am going to fire it to on the bottom then i don't get my low fire and high fire bisque mixed up. I started to add the cone after hurricane charley destroyed my studio in 2004. My shelves collapsed and i couldn't tell the lowfire from high fire from each other in the pile that survived the fall. When i started making again 3 years later i started adding the cone.

I've made a couple of stamps, but rarely use them, my usual method is to initial the bottom just after trimming - I use a Porcupine quill, it lives with my trimming tools so I don't have to use a needle which will then get left in the wrong place.

Thanks for the input and variety of ways to approach signing a pot...I guess I was making it harder than it needed to be...by scribing, sanding, filling with underglaze and then wiping off the excess ;o(

I have some pieces of lead type saved from when my Dad had a one-man printing business in our home. He set all his type by hand--this was 75 years ago and he had learned from his father when he was young. I have my two initials and a small design that I just press into the clay when I finish trimming. It always brings back good memories and keeps him part of my life.

I use the rubber sculpting blending tool thing (not sure the name)… this week at nceca somebody mentioned that they put a black spot of slip in the bottom of their pots, and then carve out their name (write with needle tool probably)

For high end work...... this etching and inlaying slip and such samnus mentions is the kind of stuff that adds that "little extra" pizazz. WELL worth the little extra time and fussing.

For some of the higher end pieces I make, I sometimes also use painted overglaze enamel or burnish gold luster. Has to "fit" the nature of the piece. I use JBaymore in script almost all the time for this kind of thing.

For a lot of stuff, I sign my name in the leatherhard clay with a DULL pencil, or a ball point pen. Prominent and readable. Sharp points like needle tools tend to leave a "harsh" quality to the mark after work is fired.

On some pieces I use a stone hanko (stamp) that I carved in Mashiko, Japan in 1996 (over a lot of sake with a potter friend). It is a stylized JB. I press it into the clay or into a small wet wad of clay.

For my Chadogu (formal teawares) it varies by the type of piece. Chawan and mizusashi and things like kogo and furo and serving pieces usually get JBaymore in the leatherhard clay outside the footring (never inside). Chaire (being very small) often get a stamped JB or an overglaze or gold one usually on the lower sidewall near the foot. Chadogu almost always also get a signed (in black ink) wooden box, with my ceramic hanko, my legal signature hanko (last name in Kanji) and the kiln name hanko in red ink. They also get a yellow-orange wrapping cloth for the piece with the same three hanko in red.

best,

..................john

PS: At the 2014 NCECA fund raising cup sale I donated a Chawan (with box, etc.). I set it at 1/2 of my usual price. Everything sold....... so .......did anyone here happen to get that piece? Curious. BTW... the cup sale raised almost $25,000 for scholarships in only a few hours of actual sales. NICE!